Articles Posted inLos Angeles Warrants

Social media has become an integral part of our lives and our culture. While it has its benefits—it’s fun to stay connected to family and friends—there’s also a downside. Facts get distorted, ugly rumors spread quickly and some unfortunate person’s life can get turned inside out in a matter of hours.

So what happens when you get charged with domestic violence? How do you respond if your accuser takes the story public? Your answer may depend on the truth of the charges against you and what impact the social media statements will have on your personal and professional life.

NOTE: Before you respond in any way, speak with a qualified Los Angeles domestic violence defense attorney as soon as possible. Even seemingly minor mistakes with respect to how you handle the situation online can have profound implications for your ability to fight the charges.

The media often popularizes driving under the influence (DUI) arrests, using them as plot points in comedies, action films, and crime mysteries. You have probably seen or read about fictional DUIs before, but experiencing a DUI in person is much different. Still, we can learn what not to do from examining famous fictional arrests.

The Arrest: In the Adam Sandler comedy, The Longest Yard (2005), police arrest Paul Crewe after a police chase and car accident. Crewe mocks one officer for his large ears and reveals an open container of beer. A televised police chase ensues, ending in Crewe crashing the Bentley and getting arrested.

Last night, after a long and heated argument with your spouse, you hit him/ her. You had heard about people who use violence against a spouse, but you deplored it. You never thought you would do it yourself. Now you feel guilty about what you’ve done, frightened that you might do it again and fearful about what the future might bring for you and for your family.

What can you do to prevent this violence from recurring? How can you turn the situation around? There are community resources throughout the Los Angeles area that can teach you how to deal with anger and frustration in more constructive ways. You can also seek out services that will help you get at the root of the problems that are causing the stress in your life and your relationship.

Although police officers arrest people from all walks of life on charges of DUI in Los Angeles, it’s not often that those DUIs relate directly to a job. But two separate incidents—one resulting in fatal injuries—demonstrate how people in some occupations may be more at risk when it comes to driving under the influence.

The first case involves a Pennsylvania nurse who forgot that he was on call to assist in emergency surgery. Richard Pieri had just returned home after enjoying time off at the Mohegan Sun casino; he reportedly had drunk at least four beers when he got the summons to go to the VA Medical Center near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. A surveillance video at the hospital showed Pieri bumping his vehicle into a concrete barrier at the parking lot before he headed up to assist the surgical team. (One of his jobs was to monitor the patient’s vital signs during the operation; fortunately for both the patient and Pieri, the surgery went well.) Coworkers noted that Pieri had not seemed his usual self during surgery and reported the incident to management. Police later became involved, charging Pieri with reckless endangering another person, DUI and public drunkenness.

Many school districts across the country face a frustrating shortage of qualified bus drivers. Some people don’t want the job because they can’t imagine spending a few hours every day with noisy grade schoolers and/or middle or high schoolers with an attitude. Others have incidents on their driving records—like a DUI in Los Angeles—that make them ineligible for such positions.
One driver in Indianapolis, Indiana, and another in Orange Beach, Alabama, aren’t likely to be getting behind the wheel of a school bus again—not after their high-profile arrests for DUI.

The bus driver in Orange Beach allegedly contributed to his own downfall. Patrick Glossop, who worked for Baldwin County Schools, hit a sign while dropping off students on Ono Island. Glossop, who had four students left on the bus, told the Ono Island private security guard what happened. The security guard called police, who eventually charged Glossop with DUI and four counts of child endangerment (one for each student).

Glossop’s blood alcohol wasn’t at the legal limit for most DUI arrests, which is 0.08; his reportedly tested 0.07. But that number is far above the BAC limit for commercial drivers, which is 0.02.

Meanwhile, in Indianapolis, reports say that Janet Kay Shaw took out utility pole wires, causing a power outage, and drove on the edge of the road while picking up students for their morning trip to school. Several of the 21 kids on the bus called their parents, who alerted school authorities. They waited for Shaw when she pulled in with her load of students and took her off the bus right away.

Police arrived on the scene and found Shaw had a stash of drugs on the bus. They charged her with 21 counts of endangering a minor while operating while intoxicated, possession of a controlled substance and leaving the scene of a crash.

Respond strategically to your arrest and charges by calling a former Senior Deputy D.A. and highly successful Los Angeles DUI defense attorney with the Kraut Law Group today for a complimentary consultation.

Kayla King has a pretty impressive rap sheet for a 24-year-old. Like many drivers arrested for DUI in Los Angeles she’s had some previous run-ins with the law; now she’s added some more serious new charges to her record.

King, who hails from South Carolina, pleaded guilty last year to grand larceny after stealing almost $38,000 in jewelry from her in-laws. King got off lightly with a sentence of five years’ probation, but she didn’t learn her lesson. Police arrested her for shoplifting earlier this year.

She was out on $500 bond from that charge when officers from the Greenville Police Department pulled her over around 1 in the morning of August 28th. They approached her on either side of the car. King refused to cooperate with their requests to get out of her 2015 Chevrolet coupe, so the officer on the driver’s side of the vehicle tried to reach in and unbuckle her seat belt. That’s when King restarted the car and drove off—dragging that officer with her. The movement threw the other officer, who had been leaning in on the passenger side, into the car.

Fortunately for both officers, King crashed after going a very short distance. But she wasn’t finished. After the wreck, she reached over to the officer who had landed in her car and attempted to grab the gun out of his holster. She wasn’t successful.
King ended up in the hospital after the crash and so did the officer dragged by her car. Both have been released, the officer to his home and King to the Greenville County Detention Center, where she remains held on no bond. She should probably get accustomed to being inside; police have charged her with attempted murder, DUI, kidnapping, possession of a controlled substance and failure to stop.

Do you or a family member need insight from a qualified Los Angeles DUI attorney? Contact Michael Kraut of the Kraut Law Group to set up your free consultation.

DUI-related accidents in California resulted in several fatalities in early August. Although police didn’t report any deaths due to DUIs in Los Angeles proper around that time, motorists in other parts of the state weren’t as lucky.

According to Long Beach Patch, 28-year-old Alvin B. Shaw had a blood alcohol content level of 0.15 when he headed west in the eastbound lanes of the Gerald Desmond Bridge in Long Beach around 7 a.m. on August 1. He slammed his 2012 Mercedes-Benz into two other vehicles, a 2014 Ford Fusion and a 2010 Nissan pickup. Both Shaw and the Fusion driver ended up in the hospital with critical injuries. But 30-year-old Miguel Gonzalez, the Nissan driver, wasn’t as lucky. Emergency workers pronounced him dead at the scene.

Shaw allegedly was driving on a suspended license, which he had lost because of a previous DUI conviction in 2014. He faces charges of murder and DUI causing injury within 10 years of another DUI offense.

On August 10th, 44-year old Carmen Venegas of Fremont, driving an Acura, hit a Toyota Scion that was stopped perpendicular to traffic on Highway 101. According to witnesses, the Scion had hit the center divider of the road before ending up on the second lane from the right facing the shoulder. That’s where the car was when Venegas broadsided it. After screening Venegas at the scene, police booked her on suspicion of DUI felony driving, driving without a license and felony manslaughter. She had two 14-year old boys plus another adult passenger in the car when the accident occurred.

Garrett James Gelrud, 34, caused a head-on collision near Pala on August 5th, killing the driver of the other car. His Chevrolet Suburban crossed the double yellow lines on Old Highway 395 and rammed into a Nissan Versa driven by 62-year-old Juan Corza Gonzalez. Gelrud ran from the scene but police caught up with him. He faces charges of second-degree murder, gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and DUI causing injury.

Designing and executing an effective defense against DUI charges (even simple ones) is not intuitive. Fortunately, you can trust the seasoned, highly successful Michael Kraut. Call a DUI lawyer in Los Angeles with nearly two decades of experience.

Drivers charged with a Los Angeles DUI often end up crashing into other vehicles (parked or moving). They may occasionally hit a storefront, a light post, a mailbox, or a home. But there aren’t many reports of people driving under the influence going off the road and driving into the Los Angeles River or some other body of water.

But police in Kennewick, Washington, can now say they’ve had such a driver.

On Wednesday, July 29th, around 3 p.m., emergency workers in that city received a 911 call saying that a car was in the river at the East Boat Launch at Columbia. NBC KNDU said that the caller reported that he and his mother had been on a nearby bridge when they saw the car slipping into the water. The witnesses ran to the scene, where the woman walked into the water and yanked open a rear door to attempt a rescue. But the car was empty.

That’s because the driver, identified only as a man in his late 20s, had apparently made it out of the car and run up a hill—dripping wet—until he reached a gas station and called for help. The Columbia Basin Drive Rescue, the Kennewick Police Department and fire crews all responded to the summons.

When police caught up with the driver, he insisted that he had been trying to take a photo of the river and—probably because he wasn’t paying close attention—he hit the car’s accelerator instead of the brake. That plunged him—and the rental car he was driving–into the water.

While police may have believed that story, they obviously thought there were other factors at play. They charged the driver with DUI.

Do you need help defending against a drug or DUI charge? Michael Kraut of Los Angeles’s Kraut Law Group is a trustworthy, highly qualified former prosecutor. Call a Los Angeles DUI attorney today to strategize for your defense seriously.

Police officers patrolling Los Angeles County highways found little to celebrate over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. From Friday, July 3rd at 6 p.m. through midnight July 6th, they made 229 arrests for DUI in Los Angeles County and dealt with the aftermath of accidents that killed two people. During that same time period, the California Highway Patrol reported that its officers made 930 DUI arrests throughout the state, while twenty-six people were killed in vehicle collisions.

One deadly accident not included in this total occurred in the early morning hours of July 3rd in Lompoc. TV Station KSBY reported that 29-year-old Manuel Santos let his Toyota Corolla drift off the road, where it hit a culvert, a boulder and then a power pole. But that didn’t stop the car. It spun out of control and went back onto the highway where a Toyota Avalon smashed into it. The two people in that car went to the hospitals for non-life-threatening injuries.

The crash killed 22-year-old Jesenia Liborio, a passenger in Santos’ car, and injured an eight-year-old girl sitting in the back seat without a seatbelt. Santos suffered major injuries and went to the hospital. Police later determined Santos had been driving under the influence, and charged him with felony DUI and vehicular manslaughter charges.

In another incident on July 4th, Mary Jane Plante drover her Toyota Tundra truck across the center divider on Highway 74 near Pinyon Pines. She struck a 1999 Nissan Maxima, injuring the 64-year-old driver so badly that he later died. Plante ran from her vehicle and spent the night on the run. It didn’t do her any good. Police picked her up the next day, arresting her on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, hit and run and gross vehicular manslaughter.

What should you do if you or someone you love faces a serious DUI count? Will you go to jail? Will you lose your license? Call Los Angeles DUI defense lawyer Michael Kraut immediately to understand your options and craft a strategic response.

Police use relatively simple tests to determine whether or not to charge someone with a DUI in Los Angeles. If a motorist’s blood alcohol content measures higher than .08 percent on a breathalyzer or blood test, that person will likely soon be visiting a local detention center.

But police face more challenging obstacles when it comes to determining whether someone has been driving under the influence of marijuana. According to a recent Fox News report, the way that humans metabolize pot makes it difficult to determine when and how driving impairment occurs. Unlike alcohol, which disappears from the bloodstream after a certain number of hours, the active ingredient in pot—tetrahydrocannabinol or THC—can linger in the bloodstream for days.

Colorado and the State of Washington have dealt with this problem by setting a level of five nanograms of THC per liter of whole blood as the threshold for driving under the influence. (Illinois may be increasing that measurement considerably; the state legislature has passed a bill raising the level of impairment to 15 nanograms.) So far, the testing process has involved measuring blood, urine or saliva samples, but one company, Cabbabix Technologies, may be changing the game. Cabbabix has created a prototype of a pot breathalyzer, according to Fox.

Law enforcement must also reconcile with the fact that no one really understands how pot affects driving. The Fox News report said researchers identified conflicting results in studies on the subject; some studies suggest that marijuana use has little to no impact on how likely someone is to get into a crash. Others suggest that drivers who use pot run a higher likelihood of getting into accidents.

Legislators in each state will need to discuss this question in more depth, as more and more states legalize the use of marijuana.

According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, the number of motorists driving under the influence of pot has risen 50 percent since 2007.

Los Angeles DUI defense lawyer, Michael Kraut, of the Kraut Law Group is standing by to offer critical insight into your case and potential defense options. Call him and his team today to begin regaining control over your case and your life.